Australia is unprepared if a war breaks out, says defence policy architect Paul Dibb

In a sobering assessment, the father of the nation’s defence policy says there is now a ‘yawning gap’ between the potential threats facing the nation and its readiness to defend itself.

Paul Dibb, pictured at the National Press Club in 2022. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The father of Australia’s defence policy, Paul Dibb, says there is now a “yawning gap” between the potential threats facing the nation and its readiness to defend itself.

In a sobering assessment of the state of Australia’s defence, Professor Dibb said the government’s rhetoric about Australia’s parlous strategic outlook was not matched by any sense of urgency within the defence bureaucracy.

He said there was now no quick way to expand the Australian Defence Force, leaving the country unprepared in the event of a sudden military conflict.

Speaking ahead of News Corp Australia’s Defending Australia 2024 summit in Canberra, Professor Dibb said: “The key defect with this government’s defence policy is the stark gap between its promises and the lack of action to change Defence preparedness. The government proclaims we are now facing the most serious strategic outlook since the Second World War, but Defence committees apparently drag on as if nothing has changed.”

Professor Dibb said there seemed to be no urgency to acquire long-range strike weapons, let alone their manufacture in Australia.

Despite numerous defence reviews and the rapid military build-up by China, he said the actual size of the ADF was similar to what it was when he wrote the seminal 1986 Dibb review that outlined the current structure of the force.

“The gap between government promises and actual delivery any time soon means we are saddled with a peacetime ADF about the same size as it was 38 years ago and with no real capacity to expand quickly,” Professor Dibb said.

“There is now a yawning gap between potential credible military threats and our lack of defence preparedness.

“I worry that we are going to be caught unprepared.“

He said “the basic size of the ADF is no different from what it was 38 years ago: an army with six battalions and one regular division; a navy with 11 major surface warships and six submarines; and an air force with around 100 combat aircraft”.

“The total size of the ADF continues to be about 60,000 or about half the crowd at an AFL grand final,” he said.

“We continue to have what is basically a peacetime force with little capacity to expand quickly in the event of a crisis. So if we want to mount a 24/7 combat air patrol of our northern approaches, we run out of pilots before we run out of jet fighters.

“I believe the same sort of limits apply if we need to deploy three or more submarines in an emergency for a prolonged period because we would run out of submariners before we run out of submarines.”

The government’s new National Defence Strategy released in April detailed the growing strategic threat posed by China and the deterioration in Australia’s strategic outlook but it conceded that it would take a decade, even with increased funding, to create the sort of defence force needed to respond to an assertive Beijing.

The new strategy confirmed that almost no new defence capabilities would be realised this decade, including no new missiles or long-range strike capabilities and no increase in the number of warships or submarines.

Both sides of politics blame the other for delays in acquiring large new military capabilities, with the first new nuclear-powered submarines not due to arrive until 2032, the same year as the first Hunter-class frigate is due for completion.

The government says it will spend an additional $50bn over the next decade and $5.7bn over the forward estimates to create a new-look, more powerful defence force.

Over the decade, this will lift defence spending as a proportion of GDP from just over 2 per cent to 2.4 per cent.

Professor Dibb said that would not be enough to fund the planned future force.

“In 1986, the Hawke government was spending much more on defence as a proportion of GDP than now,” he said.

“At that time, we faced only low level conflict and 10 years’ warning of a major military threat.

“Now we will have little or no warning of high intensity military conflict.”

Professor Dibb said the authors of last year’s Defence Strategic Review should play a role in overseeing the implementation of the government’s defence plan, just as he did after his 1986 Dibb report.